Kaigan
by Clara
Summary: After the death of her mother, Kagome was forced to move to America to live with her father. Ten years later, her grandfather summons her back on her 17th birthday to reveal a family secret. How does she react? How will now awake Inuyasha react? AU
1. The Secret

A/N: I'm using a bit of Japanese in this story for only one reason—Kagome insists in speaking in English, and her grandfather doesn't know some translations for the Japanese words.   
  
Disclaimer: I disclaim any and all rights to Inuyasha. Takahashi Rumiko owns him and all the other characters. No infringement was intended.   
  
* 

  
  
In a future where youkai exist but are unknown, in a time where a certain, now jaded, young miko wasn't sent back into time by a well, in an era where the infamous hanyou was never awoken, in an age where the Higurashi's held a rather interesting secret..   
  


**Kaigan**  
Chapter One: The Secret  
By Clara

  
  
Kagome hated airplanes.   
  
It wasn't so much that she was afraid of them, it was more that she was unnerved about being so high up from the ground with only a thin sheet of steel underneath her. Not only that, but spending a good fifteen hours in a cramped compartment with someone constantly kicking the back of your chair and a baby screaming its fool head off nearby could drive anyone to loathe the humongous flying contraption.   
  
She sighed and pressed her face against the window, trying to look for any source of land. All she could see was an endless amount of blue. She ran her fingers across the thick glass, as if to symbolize her entrapment.   
  
Yeah, her English teacher would be so proud.   
  
Snorting slightly, she leaned back against the chair. At least she was able to claim the window seat. It gave her a sense of freedom.   
  
The guy beside her didn't look too happy about it, though.   
  
There was something weird about him, too. He didn't seem normal. In fact, she was nearly sure he wasn't normal. He was just too… well, she didn't like to sound prejudiced, but he was weird. That was the best way to describe him. He sat a little too straight and his eyes were a little too sharp, and there was something about his hair that wasn't right. It was black, there was nothing peculiar about that, but it was just… over shiny. And it was extremely long. It was twisted in a very neat braid that fell all the way down to his waist.   
  
He was also overly attractive. He seemed to be air brushed, or something like that.   
  
She sighed and wondered when she started to pay such close attention to detail, especially concerning the male gender. After all, she did have a boyfriend, who she was happy with. She wouldn't exactly call him the love of her life, but who expected to find that when their only seventeen?   
  
Sighing again, she snuck another glance at the boy sitting beside her. And really, that's all he was—a boy. She bit her bottom lip suddenly.   
  
It wasn't the boy being overly attractive that weirded her out, it was the fact that he had an aura of oldness about him. The eerie thing was, though, he only looked a couple years older than her own seventeen. She frowned and shook her head, swinging her eyes back to the dazzling sea. This time, though, instead of just the eternal expanse of ocean, she spotted one of the beaches of Honshu.   
  
It would only be a few more minutes until they landed in Tokyo.   
  
Kagome pressed the button on her armrest and straightened her chair before the pilot could order her to and turned her gaze back on her homeland.   
  
Japan. She didn't think she would be returning there any time soon, especially not for her seventeenth birthday. She even had plans made out with her friends that lived back in her _real_ home; or rather, what she thought of as her real home. To her surprise, though, a week before her birthday, her grandfather called and ordered her father to let her return to Japan. Her father, of course, did not put up a fight and sent her off the day before her birthday. Which she was celebrating cramped next to an unhappy looking boy and several hundred miles above ground.   
  
Ten years ago, after her mother died in a fatal car accident, she was sent to live with her father in California. Her grandpa couldn't support her and her little brother. She didn't want to go, of course, since she had never met the man in her life and she had been feeling rather betrayed. Her grandfather had to drag her kicking and screaming to the airport and practically into the airplane, where she was 'tied' to her chair by her safety belt. Actually, that was most likely the reason why she hated airplanes, even up to now.   
  
Not surprisingly, though, her father didn't want her there as much as she didn't want to be there. He treated her distantly for the first couple of years she lived there, but she didn't care. She treated him as coolly as he treated her. She threw herself into a social life, even at the early age of seven. Seldom was she ever home; she usually found respite in friend's or neighbor's homes.   
  
She had never been a wild child, however. Although most of the time she was unattended, she still carried with her some of the strict moral values that her mother and her grandfather practically imbedded in her brain. Letting out another long breath, she closed her eyes.   
  
When she opened them again, it was to a rather rough landing. She probably would have jumped several feet if she wasn't connected to her chair. Looking faintly embarrassed, she waited until the pilot stated that everyone could take off their safety belts and move around before she stood up. The boy beside her pulled himself up right before the announcement and grabbed his stuff, hurrying towards the exit. He ignored the strange looks of several passengers and the annoyed protest of one of the stewardesses.   
  
Kagome blinked, then just shrugged it off. Hell if she tried to explain the oddities of human nature.   
  
*   
  
Kagome allowed herself to bask in the familiarity of her old home. It hadn't changed a bit since she left her last visit a couple of years ago. Her room was exactly the same as it was before, down to the last teddy bear. She smiled fondly and wondered how her grandfather managed to keep Souta away from her stuff. Looking faintly amused, she set her oversized duffel bag beside her bed and sat down.   
  
"Hi, Buyo!" the teenager chirped in English, picking up the queen sized cat with a grunt of effort. She wasn't terribly fond of speaking in Japanese. After all, she wasn't Japanese. She was _American_. "Man, cat, you got humongous."   
  
"Mrrrow," Buyo responded, rubbing his round head against her chin. She grinned a little.   
  
"Hey, do _you_ know when Grandpa and Sota are coming back?" When she got to the terminal of the airport after her terribly long flight, there had been a chauffer like man holding up a sign that said 'Higurashi' in kana. He escorted her to her home, the Higurashi Shrine, without saying a word to her, then left before she could even give him a tip. Not that she would have, with the way he treated her.   
  
There was something weird about that man, too. He wasn't quite was attractive as the other, but he had the same feeling of ancientness around him.   
  
She shook her head and set Buyo down on the bed. The cat rolled over on its back and stuck all four paws in the air contently, before falling asleep like that. Kagome chuckled quietly and stood up.   
  
"All right, Buyo, while you crash on my bed even before I can, I'm going to go wander around." The sleeping cat didn't answer her, but she didn't really expect it too. Still looking amused, she wandered out of her room.   
  
Her house looked the same. It was as clean as usual, and she had the feeling that, like her room, it hadn't changed in the slightest. But that wasn't what interested her. She had already been around that house a million times before, and she doubted she would find anything interesting. She had a different destination in mind.   
  
Kagome walked out of her house and into the courtyard, smiling slightly. They hadn't changed the yard much, either. She could still see the top of the old Go-Shin-Boku, and she knew if she followed the old stone path that was partially hidden by a couple of shrubs, she would find the rest of the tree.   
  
And, as usual, the forbidden shack that surrounded half of the trunk.   
  
Ever since she was a little girl, Kagome wondered just what her family was hiding in that shack. She knew it was important, since they had a festival every year celebrating.. something. She never knew quite what they were celebrating, but she never cared when she was younger. To her it was only a way to get out of school and a popularity boost. Everyone knew her for 'her' Go-Shin-Boku. That was, of course, until she was shipped off to America.   
  
Not to her surprise, she found herself standing in front of the shack. She reached out and touched the handle of the door, once again trying to figure out when her grandfather's famous wards would start to kick in. This was a game she usually played with herself whenever she came down to visit—see how far she could get before the scrolls attacked her or something. She always got as far as turning the handle before she chickened out. It wasn't like she was going to intentionally fry herself, or something.   
  
"I won't stop myself this time," she muttered, then turned the handle. There was a rusty click as the door opened a crack.   
  
Kagome blinked. "Okay, aren't the wards supposed to be turning on right about now, or something?" Her voice sounded brave even to her own ears, but she couldn't help to notice the slight tremble in her hand. She frowned and steadied it, then opened the door a little more.   
  
"Kaaaa~gome!!"   
  
The said character jumped guiltily and the door of the shack was slammed shut. Kagome blinked repeatedly and spun around, pressing her back against the door.   
  
"H-hey, Sota!" Kagome called back. She took a couple of steps away from the offending shack to make it look as if she had just been observing it. She waved as her brother came into view, then braced herself for what promised to be a bone-crushing hug. She wasn't disappointed.   
  
"Agh! Brat, I can't breathe!" She tried unsuccessfully to squirm out of his surprisingly strong grasp. "Jeez, when did you get strong? How old are you now, eight? Nine?"   
  
Sota gave her an extra hard squeeze for that comment. "I'm thirteen, jerk."   
  
"Right. Ow!"   
  
"Why do you speak in English?" Sota asked in English, looking up at his sister and all but tightening his grasp. His voice was terribly accented.   
  
"Same reason why you speak in Japanese. It's easier for me."   
  
"So," Sota said, switching back to Japanese, "I'll speak in Japanese, and you speak in English."   
  
Kagome cracked a grin. "Somehow, I don't think that'll work very well.."   
  
"Kagome!" a familiar voice interrupted. Both children turned around quickly.   
  
"Hi, _Jii-san_!" Kagome called back, in English. The older man's face twisted in annoyance. He hated when she spoke in English, which is part of the reason she actually spoke it. However, there was something that flashed across the older man's face that caused her to stop dead.   
  
He had the oddest look of determination on his face.   
  
"Sota," Grandfather said quietly. The tone of his voice grabbed the young boy's attention and held it. It offered no room for objection. "Go to the shrine. It needs to be swept."   
  
Sota nodded once, then released Kagome and started to run towards the shrine. Kagome blinked at his back, then looked up at her grandfather for an explanation. He did not disappoint her.   
  
"Kagome, the Higurashi Shrine has a secret that we haven't even told you or your brother. This secret could destroy our precious shrine, and what's worse, our lives and reputations," her grandfather said in an utmost serious voice. He wobbled towards her, looking at the door of the shack.   
  
"Does this have to do with the Go-Shin-Boku?" Kagome asked, shoving her hands in her jacket pockets. Her grandfather did a complete one-eighty, his serious expression turning into a baffled one.   
  
"You mean, you knew?!"   
  
"As if it wasn't blatantly obvious," Kagome grumbled, rolling her eyes. "It's not exactly what one would call 'natural' for a shack to be built around a _tree_…" She shook her head. "Not only that, you're staring straight at it."   
  
"Then you've been inside the _karigoya_…" her grandfather said, a grave look on his face. He looked.. well, disappointed in her.   
  
"You threatened to beat us with a willow branch if we did, Grandpa," Kagome grumbled in a deadpan voice. "We never went into the _shack_," she put emphasis in the last word, "even when _I_ lived down here. Really, I have more respect than _that_…"   
  
"You have yet to prove that to me, Kagome-san," Grandfather said quietly. Kagome pretended she didn't hear what he said. "Anyway, what you see in this _karigoya_ must remain secret at all costs. You mustn't tell anyone, not even your _otouto-san_."   
  
Kagome frowned. Her grandfather was taking this ridiculous legend more seriously than she thought. She heaved a great sigh, then rolled her eyes. "All right, _Jii-san_, I swear on my honor that I won't let anyone know about whatever you have growing in the shack."   
  
"_Arigato_, Kagome." Her grandfather stopped in front of the door, then pushed it open and lead her inside. He stopped at the door, and when Kagome was fully inside, he silently stepped outside of the shack and shut the door behind her.   
  
Kagome jumped, the whirled around. "_Jii-san_!" Kagome shouted at the door. "What do you think you're doing?!"   
  
"You don't need my help to look at a tree, Kagome," was the muffled reply. Kagome spat out a very undignified and very disrespectful curse, then spun back around on her heal. Jamming her hands into her pockets, she looked up at the huge, thriving tree.   
  
Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes became huge. Slowly, carefully, she took a step closer to the tree, pulling her hands out of her pockets to reach out and touch the reason for her shock.   
  
Pinned against the tree by a solitary arrow was a boy who, from what she could see, looked about her age.   
  
"Hello?" she asked hesitantly, than instantly felt silly. Of course, this must have been another one of her grandfather's 'legendary items'. For all she knew, it was just a dummy stuck to the tree. After all, 'it' only appeared to be around seventeen or eighteen years old, and 'it' had white hair. Everyone knew that only old people had white hair.   
  
Without weighing out the pros and cons, she climbed up the huge roots (after commending her grandfather for doing such an awesome job of making this look realistic), then blinked. The… well, for some reason, her grandfather had put fake ears on the dummy. Perhaps to make her believe that there really _were_ youkai and hanyou and kappa and all those silly myths running around.   
  
She grabbed one of the ears with both hands and yanked.   
  
If she had been looking more closely, she might have noticed the figure's left hand curling slightly, but no one ever looks closely.   
  
When the ear didn't come off after the first yank, she tried again, pulling harder. After all, there was no way this 'person' could have real dog-ears. But they were rather soft and kind of cute… Maybe she could wear them for her job's next Halloween party.   
  
"That is, if I could ever get these damn things off," she muttered in annoyance, still convinced that her grandfather had just superglued them on or something. "Or maybe he sewed them on…" Carefully, she scaled the roots higher so she could get a better view of the boy's head. She frowned, then dug around in the white hair around his ears to find the seams. "That's funny, I.."   
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing, bitch?!"   
  
Kagome let out a shrill scream, probably shattering the now awake boy's eardrums. She jumped and caught her foot on one of the roots. Letting out a surprised yelp, she tumbled gracelessly from the roots and landed rather painfully on her rear. She bounced a bit, looking up at the dog eared boy with shock   
  
"Oh, I get it…" she said quietly, unintentionally slipping back into Japanese. "You must be a machine!"   
  
"Ma-shi-ne?" the boy repeated, lifting an eyebrow. "What's this, do you have new names for hanyou now?"   
  
"Don't be ridiculous! There's no such thing as hanyou. There never has been. You _must_ be a creation of my grandfather's; he's the only one who still believes in those ridiculous myths."   
  
"Do I _look_ like a myth to you?!"   
  
Grandfather must have heard the commotion going on in the shack, because a few seconds after the white haired 'machine' finished his last sentence, he slammed the door open, watery blue eyes wide. "K-Kagome! What's going on? Why is he awake?!"   
  
"Don't be silly, _Jii-san_," Kagome said in English. The boy blinked in confusion. "I know this is just another one of your more elaborate tricks to get me to believe your silly legends…"   
  
"No, Kagome, this isn't a _shinwa_. I only wish it was." The gravity of her grandfather's voice made her look twice. The boy was looking at them with curious eyes, and Kagome took a small step back.   
  
"Are you trying to tell me that this.. thing that's stuck to the tree is alive?!" she yelped in Japanese. She really didn't mean to slip back. Her grandfather nodded sagely.   
  
"Hey!" the boy cried. He had an offended look on his face. "I am not a 'thing'!" Unfortunately, though, his speaking drew her attention back to him.   
  
"Then what are you?! Are you a human?"   
  
"Feh! Don't put me at your level!" the boy spat.   
  
Grandfather, however, took advantage of the fact that Kagome was distracted to sneak out. Kagome was much more capable of handling the demon if he got lose, after all. He supposed he should have ordered her to leave, but as stubborn as Kagome was, she probably would have refused in favor of arguing with the demon.   
  
Well, at least it seemed like he couldn't remove himself from the tree..   
  
"My level! At least I'm not stuck to a tree! How did you manage to get yourself stuck to a _tree_ for crying out loud?!" Kagome barked, disdainfully. She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a smug look.   
  
"You don't know anything!"   
  
"I know it takes someone pretty moronic to get himself stuck to a tree!"   
  
The boy stilled for a moment, his eyes closing in concentration. He drew his lips back to bear his fangs and Kagome was actually rather interested in the growling sounds that were coming from his chest. She mused that he would probably be rather intimidating if he wasn't hanging from a tree.   
  
He did a pretty good job at struggling, truth be told. He actually managed to ball up both his fists and move one of his legs, but unfortunately, that was it.   
  
"DAMNIT!" he roared, eyes snapping open. His ears flattened and he was the perfect picture of animalistic fury. "You dumb bastard! LET ME DOWN!"   
  
Kagome tilted her head thoughtfully, examining him as if she was looking at him for the first time. He was trembling in suppressed anger. She snorted, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Yeah. Right. So you can kill me? I don't think so." She started to walk back out, turning her back to him as if signifying how he couldn't do anything to her, even when her defenses were down. At least, that's how he saw it. Of course, that didn't calm his fury down, any.   
  
"Where do you think you're going, bitch?! Let me down!"   
  
"If you're so much better than humans, then get yourself down," Kagome snorted. That being said, she stomped out of the shack and closed the door with a resounding slam. The boy winced a bit, his ears flattening again.   
  
"BIIIIITCH!"   
  
*   
  
Dinner was tense. Kagome refused to look _or_ talk to Grandfather, while Grandfather was busying himself with his sushi. Sota was alternating between looking back and forth between Grandfather and Kagome, and trying to sneak off table scraps to the already obese Buyo. He had only succeeded a couple of times—somehow either Kagome or Grandfather would pause from avoiding each other to snap at him.   
  
The poor boy sighed, then gathered up his plates and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm going to go do my homework," Sota said, spitting out the first excuse he could think of. He didn't like being around them when they were all tense like that. Buyo meowed and stood up, waddling after him as he left the room after putting the dishes in the sink.   
  
As soon as he was gone, though, Kagome turned her predatory gaze to Grandfather, setting her chopsticks down.   
  
"How long has he been pinned to that tree?" Kagome hissed in English, just in case Sota was still near by. "WHY is he pinned to the tree? What is he? WHO is he? What's going on, _Jii-san_?"   
  
Grandfather sighed, also setting his chopsticks down. He didn't look at her yet, though. "That 'boy's' name is Inuyasha. However, he is much older than all of us combined.   
  
"To answer your first question, the scrolls that have been passed down to us generation to generation state that he has been pinned to that tree for five hundred years.."   
  
"Five HUNDRED years?!" Kagome repeated, shocked. There is no way that boy could be that old! It was impossible!   
  
"That's only estimated. He could have been pinned to that tree longer.."   
  
"Longer?!"   
  
"Need you repeat everything I say?" Grandfather sighed. "Anyway, the scrolls say that five hundred years ago, Inuyasha, a wild hanyou, rampaged a nearby village, burning most of it down and killing several civilians, for a legendary jewel. The town's miko saved the rest of the village and the jewel he tried to steal by shooting that arrow you saw in his chest through his heart and into the tree, successfully putting him into an eternal sleep."   
  
"What does this have to do with our family, though? I mean, was the miko one of our ancestors, or something?" Kagome asked, looking interested for once. She leaned on the table in a manner that was rather impolite, but she ignored his chastising glare.   
  
"She was not a Higurashi," Grandfather explained. "Actually, she died right after she pinned him to the tree from mortal injuries that were inflicted upon her by the hanyou." He shook his head in pity, then said a small prayer to the gods to let her soul, wherever it may be, rest in peace. "The Higurashi's were actually a small family that lived in the nearby village at the time. The youngest daughter of the family, however, had been studying to be a miko under the care of the miko who had killed Inuyasha at the time. Directly after the miko's death, our ancestor vowed to never let the hanyou who had killed her precious mistress to ever awake. She ordered the village men to build a temple around the tree."   
  
"You mean," Kagome repeated in disbelief, "that shack around the tree is a temple?!"   
  
"It is five hundred years old, Kagome. You cannot expect it to be the perfect piece of modern architecture.." He sighed again, then returned to his story. "Anyway, the young miko married one of the village men, and her daughter carried on her footsteps. It has been like that for generations, up to your mother."   
  
"Mother.." Kagome's arms slipped off the table, and she folded them in her lap. Her gaze drifted out the only window in the room. "Mother was a miko?"   
  
"Of course."   
  
"And.." she continued, "you're telling me all of this because I'm going to be the next miko of our shrine?"   
  
Grandfather nodded, glad to see she was starting to understand.   
  
"Get REAL!"   
  
Grandfather would have cried if he could. There went his little bubble..   
  
"Kagome, it's not as if you have a choice," Grandfather explained. "It is your duty.."   
  
"If it's my duty, then why did you send me off to American ten years ago?" she bit out.   
  
_Ah,_ Grandfather thought, _so she is still holding a grudge about that._   
  
"Your father would not have taken your brother," Grandfather whispered, just loud enough to be heard. Kagome fell silent, objections dying at her lips. Gathering his dishes, he stood up and walked slowly towards the sink. His joints were being especially disagreeable that night. "But that is another story for another time. It is late, Kagome. Get some rest."   
  
"Why can't you just be the priest of the shrine?" Kagome asked desperately, switching back to Japanese. "Then you can pass it on to Sota.."   
  
"Sota does not possess the necessary powers to control the hanyou," Grandfather explained warily. "You do, although you do not know how to control them yet. They are dormant at the moment."   
  
"But.." she continued, standing up much quicker than her grandfather had. "But he's awake now! It's nothing like the other miko's duties! How can I, someone who didn't even know she _was_ a miko until today, control a demon so many people had tried so hard to keep asleep?!"   
  
Grandfather spared a glance at her. Her questions were reasonable, but unfortunately he did not have any of the right answers.   
  
"Tomorrow, Kagome, I'll research. As for now, there is nothing we can do. Go to sleep.   
  
*   
  
It wasn't as easy as that, of course. No matter how hard she tried that night, it was impossible for her to even close her eyes. After an hour of futile tossing and turning, she gave up and slid out of bed. Walking on cats feet past her brother's and grandfather's room, she slipped on her wooden clogs and hurried to the place that had been haunting her ever since the moment she got there.   
  
Inuyasha was still pinned to the tree, of course, and Kagome let out a relieved breath she didn't know she was holding. Some of the tension left her shoulders and she sat on one of the roots, looking up at the boy. It almost looked as if he had been put back under the spell. His chin was resting against his chest, and his eyes were closed. She studied him for a moment under the sparse moonlight that leaked through the cracks in the old temple, then reached over to one of the oil lamps that was hanging from a hook on the wall. She struck the piece of flint that was lying on the dish that the lamp was set in, then lit the wick and placed the merrily burning lamp back on its hook. The light from the flame threw odd shadows about the room, and for a moment the girl felt oddly out of place.   
  
"Well, at least I don't have to deal with you without help, anymore," Kagome said aloud, trying to break the weirdness she felt. She kept her eyes carefully fixed on his face. "I mean, after all, how hard is it to watch over a sleeping hanyou?"   
  
"Impossible when they wake up," he answered, surprisingly. She sighed.   
  
"I knew it was too good to be true."   
  
"Are you going to let me down?" Inuyasha asked. His eyes opened, and Kagome belatedly noticed that they were an odd amber color.   
  
"Are you going to kill me if I let you down?"   
  
"Fuck, yeah!" the boy growled vehemently.   
  
"Then no."   
  
He spat out a couple of choice words and struggled for a moment, eyes glowing eerily from the fire's light, then sighed almost helplessly and sagged against the tree. For a moment, Kagome almost pitied him. Almost.   
  
"Why are you here, then?" he asked. His fangs were still bared in what he thought was a threatening manner.   
  
"I couldn't sleep," she answered truthfully, idly tracing designs on the root.   
  
"Feh," he huffed. "That doesn't explain why you came here."   
  
"Well," Kagome thought out loud, "I wasn't about to wake up Grandpa or Sota, and I figured it wouldn't matter if I woke you up.."   
  
He sneered at her for that, but didn't answer. She didn't say anything either. Truthfully, she wasn't entirely sure why she was still there. The reason why she came in the first place was to make sure he was still there, and that he wasn't a figment of her imagination, but her curiosity had already been appeased.   
  
Perhaps it was because she was still waiting for Grandfather to leap out from behind the tree and shout 'just kidding!' and waving around some high tech remote control.   
  
"Oi, bitch," the boy growled out, softly. He was staring hardly at one of the shadows. His voice sounded uncomfortable, though, almost strained. It was as if he did not want to ask her what he was going to ask her. "What's that.. thing? And how come it smells.. metallic? Is it a new kind of youkai?"   
  
Kagome blinked in confusion, trying to locate the source of his unease. She frowned a bit, when she noticed something that was off to the side, then pushed herself up to take a curious step towards it. Inuyasha was watching her with an almost predatory look on his face, as if he hoped that whatever was there would kill her. She shot him a nasty glare, then grabbed the lamp. If there was something dangerous there, she could always just throw the lamp at it. It wasn't as if there would be any loss if the stupid hanyou died.   
  
She blinked, appalled at her line of thought. When did she become so vitriolic? Frowning, she took another step towards the thing. When she finally saw it, it took all she had to not burst out laughing.   
  
"That's a lawnmower," Kagome explained, glancing back up at him. She wondered when Grandfather turned this place into a storage shack. "Don't worry, it won't attack you or anything."   
  
"It stinks. Get it out of here," he ordered, sticking his nose in the air.   
  
Of all the self-important jerks..   
  
"Get it out of here yourself," she growled. He growled back, and she grudgingly admitted he was better at growling than she.   
  
"Bitch."   
  
"Jackass!"   
  
They glared at each other, Kagome folding her arms over her chest. The battle of wills raged on for a couple of minutes.   
  
That is, until Inuyasha's stomach growled.   
  
Kagome's lips twitched into a grin, which only widened when he blushed slightly.   
  
"Fucking bitch," he growled sulkily, slumping back against the tree. "Laughing at my misery.."   
  
"Oh, quit whining." Snorting derisively, she moved over to the door, replacing the oil lamp on its hook.   
  
"What are you going to do?" he asked curiously, eying the merrily burning flame. "Leave that lit in hope of burning me down?"   
  
"Don't flatter yourself. I'll be right back." She left then, and Inuyasha frowned. As soon as she left that time, he redoubled his efforts in freeing himself.   
  
"Shit," he grumbled, then glared at the door.   
  
That.. girl was so.. weird. He couldn't think of any better way to describe her. She looked and smelled faintly like the woman who killed him, but there were so many things different about them. For one thing, he could never imagine Kikyo wearing that.. outfit she was wearing earlier. It revealed far too much skin.   
  
Inuyasha's lip curled in disgust when he thought of the long dead miko.   
  
Kagome came tromping back in, holding a cup of instant ramen that was steaming from the top. Inuyasha's nose twitched and his head snapped up so quickly that Kagome momentarily envisioned him getting whiplash. Careful of the steaming soup, she climbed up the roots and stood in front of Inuyasha so that they were nearly face to face.   
  
"Hungry?" she asked cheerfully. His ears twitched towards her, then flattened. The hint of malice in her voice was impossible to miss.   
  
Instead of calling her a crude name and ordering her to give it to him, he just stared at her. For a justifiable reason, he had a feeling if he _had_ called her something rude, he would have ended up wearing the soup.   
  
"Ask nicely."   
  
Inuyasha beared his teeth, tempted to bite her nose. It was just so close!   
  
"Can I.. _please_.. have some soup?" he grated out, staring at the delectable soup that she held up in front of him. The scent was driving him mad with hunger.   
  
Kagome beamed at him and Inuyasha swallowed nervously. He didn't like the look she was giving him. Frowning, he watched her with attentiveness as she picked up some of the noodles with a pair of chopsticks. To his surprise, she held it in front of his mouth.   
  
"Open wide!" she ordered in a voice that one might use on a little kid. Her eyes glinted maliciously.   
  
Inuyasha stared at her in incredulity. Did she just..?   
  
"I hate you," he bit out, then almost choked when she shoved the noodles in his mouth.   
  
"Trust me, buddy, the feeling's mutual."   
  
.:end chapter one:. 
  
  
*grins* Good, bad, or ugly? Since there are a couple Japanese words in here that aren't used all the time, I'll include them and their definitions at the bottom.   
  
Dict:  
Karigoya: shack. Her grandfather uses this to describe the temple that surrounds the Go-Shin-Boku.  
Shinwa: myth/legend  
Otouto-san: little brother  
Jii-san/Ojii-san: Grandfather  
Youkai: Demon  
Hanyou: Half demon  
Kappa: Water sprite  
  
People probably already know the last couple, but I included them just in case. Also, the word "Kaigan" literally means "awakening" or "spiritual awakening". Anyway, in the next chapter, Inuyasha gets his prayer beads, and Kagome gets a couple shocks of her lifetime. *grins crookedly* I hope you enjoyed. 


	2. A Rut

School (and a lot of it), work, friends, and the lack of interest in the Inuyasha section has resulted in me...well, not writing. For anything. I can't seem to fall back into the habit of writing every chance I get, which is depressing because whenever I _try_ to write, I spit out a paragraph and move off to something else. My inspiration has gone kaput and my muses have taken the first flight to Hawaii to escape me and my wrath.   
  
If you leave me a review, please do not chastise me for my lack of updating, or order me to update School Daze. I'm _fully aware_ I have not written in a long time, and you have my sincerest apologies. I haven't updated anything because my style of writing has changed so much that I can't bring myself to be remotely interested in the things I've written before. It's like the me of two years ago is completely different from the me now. I do want to continue writing School Daze, and even write a sequel for it (shock!) but my schedule is so bloody heavy that large projects can be very daunting, and School Daze its future sequel _are_ humongous projects.   
  
The only thing I can say is to just...enjoy the fic and worry about me being slow in the updating bit later.   
  


* * *

  
  


**Kaigan**  
Chapter Two: A Rut  
By Clara

  
  
Inuyasha frowned. He was still hanging to the tree, of course, but that wasn't what he was frowning about. His ears twitched and his eyes narrowed in annoyance. There was a beat going through his head—he didn't know the words (since he had a feeling it was in a different language), and it had been repeating itself for the majority of the night and into the morning. He didn't recognize the song, but it was so damned familiar and catchy it was beyond agonizing.   
  
Too anyone who knew old English rock, however, they would have immediately recognized the song going through the hanyou's mind as 'Oh! Darling', by The Beatles. Unfortunately, there was no one who knew anything remotely English in the vicinity, so poor Inuyasha was left to suffer on his own. Against his will, he found himself humming the first strains of the song and tapping his fingers against the bark.   
  
Boredom made even the strongest men do the oddest things.   
  
"You are SO weird."   
  
Inuyasha's head jerked up and his lips pull back into his customary sneer. There was that stupid girl again, clad in a pair of comfortable looking pants and a short sleeved shirt with something written in strange letters across the chest. He blinked when he noticed where his eyes were, then pulled them back to her face.   
  
She gave him an exasperated look. "How do you know The Beatles if you've been trapped to a tree for five hundred years?" she asked, and he noticed with distaste that her tone was mocking. There was something jaded about this girl that annoyed him.   
  
"The Bii-tals?" Inuyasha tried experimentally. He didn't like the way those words felt on his tongue. They were foreign and uncomfortable. "And I don't know how I know it. I just do."   
  
She gave him a strange look, then sat delicately on one of the upraised roots. "So, what, you were born with 'Oh! Darling' running through your head?"   
  
The girl had quite a mouth on her.   
  
"No, you idiot, I just.. remember it." He closed his eyes, pulling up the memories that he didn't know existed. Childish laughter rang through his ears, merging with Paul McCartney's gentle voice. Two other pitches of laughter joined the child, one distinctly male and the other definitely female, though both were much older. He remembered… he remembered his eyes opening at the child's laughter as it got closer to him, and the soothing sunlight playing against his face through the cracks of the temple surrounding him. He remembered a shadow darting through the cracks, and a sweet giggle, and...   
  
"Oi. Earth to weird dog-youkai!"   
  
His eyes snapped open. The girl (did the old man say her name was Kagome?) was looking at him even more strangely. The peaceful memory fled with the sunlight that vanished behind a robust cloud.   
  
"You disappeared on me there for a minute."   
  
"If only I were so lucky," Inuyasha shot back, earning a dirty look for a response. "For the last time, will you let me down from this damned tree?"   
  
"We've already been through this before," Kagome sighed, reaching up to brush her bangs from her forehead. They were getting a bit too long for her taste. "If I let you down, you'll kill me and proceed to wreak havoc on my lovely little home. Neither of those sound appealing to me, so up you stay."   
  
He already knew she would answer with that, but he couldn't stop the stab of disappointment that pierced his chest. Heaving a sigh, he looked up at the roof of the shack. It was better than looking at the girl, that was for sure. "Then why do you come here?"   
  
"Would you believe because I'm still having issues believing that you really exist?" Her harsh expression was gone. "You're not supposed to exist. There are no such things as youkai."   
  
"Why are you so insistent on that?" the hanyou asked, genuinely curious. "Aren't I enough proof?"   
  
"I spent all my life convincing myself there was no such thing as magic or youkai or anything like that, so you can't just expect me to believe in you because you're suddenly just...there."   
  
"Why not?"   
  
This seemed to stump Kagome because she just fell into a moody sort of silence, staring at a spot above Inuyasha's head. They both remained hushed for a long time, and outside Inuyasha could hear the birds chirping.   
  
"Let's just say I have too much to accept," Kagome said quietly, before standing up again. She was observing his arrow. "Oi, does that hurt?"   
  
"No," Inuyasha said, as if the very thought of a mere arrow wounding him was beyond ludicrous. "It just...makes it impossible to move." He found his eyes moving upward again. "Do you really plan on leaving me up here for forever, even if I'm awake?"   
  
The answer he got, however, was the creaking of the temple's door swinging open then gently closing again. He snapped his head back down in surprise, wondering if the girl was so rude to leave in the middle of a conversation. To his distaste she was still there, but turned to look at the old man from the other day.   
  
"Jii-san," Kagome greeted, then glanced down at his hands. "What's that?"   
  
"I spent all night with all the scrolls I could find in the shrine, and came across one that had directions for what should be done if the seal was broken." He held up a string of prayer beads. "I blessed them and everything. All you'll need to do is say a subduing spell."   
  
"A subduing spell?" Kagome repeated. Inuyasha's ears were flattened.   
  
"Oi, there is no way in hell you're going to put those marbles on me," he growled, shrinking away from the two of them as Kagome took the beads.   
  
"Do you want to be released from the tree?" Kagome asked, hardly paying attention to him. He opened his mouth, couldn't think of anything to say, then closed it again and sighed heavily in resignation. Kagome walked over and put the beads around his neck.   
  
He glared. She glared better.   
  
"Okay now, Kagome-chan! Take out the arrow!"   
  
Inuyasha and Kagome both blinked at the same time, breaking the glaring match. They turned as one towards her grandfather. Well, Kagome turned and Inuyasha just sort of hung there.   
  
"Are you sure, _Jii-san_?" Kagome asked, slipping into English. She didn't know if she wanted Inuyasha to hear what she was saying. Call her paranoid, but she didn't want the added displeasure on her part to give him more reason to attempt to maul her.   
  
"Just do it, Kagome-chan."   
  
Giving her grandfather an extremely dry look, Kagome slid her fingers down Inuyasha's chest. His eyes opened wide and he frowned with displeasure. He wasn't particularly fond of the feelings those touches invoked, particularly because he had never really felt anything like it.   
  
He scowled at her. She scowled back. He couldn't bring himself to pull his gaze from her face. Thankfully, she seemed to have the same problem as he and was staring into his eyes with as much intensity.   
  
Even as she yanked the arrow out of his heart.   
  
"OW!" he barked, his arms flying up on instinct to grab her. She yelped, he yelped, and the arrow disappeared   
  
There was a long period of silence as everyone stared at everyone else, then Kagome slid her eyes down to Inuyasha's hands that were partially hiding the lettering on her shirt. Inuyasha immediately felt as if the temperature in the shack dropped several degrees.   
  
_Uh. Oh._   
  
"SIT!"   
  
Kagome thought, quite reasonably, that when Inuyasha would 'sit' he would land on his, well, behind. She was completely surprised, therefore, when Inuyasha went slamming forward on top of her, sending wood flying everywhere.   
  
"PERVERT! GET OFF OF ME!"   
  
"I would if I could!" Inuyasha shouted back, struggling to get off the hysterical girl. Human as she was, he could have sworn she had claws.   
  
Unfortunately, though, struggling seemed to make it worse.   
  
"Oh my," Grandfather said, hiding a grin behind his hand. "I'll just.. leave you two to get to know each other."   
  
How cliché.   
  
"JII-SAN!" Kagome roared, but it was to no avail. The door of the shack swung closed.   
  
The next few moments were filled with muffled curses and growls. When the spell's effects faded, Inuyasha leapt as far as he could from Kagome, who was panting and looking extremely flustered.   
  
"That..." Inuyasha said, sounding a bit out of breath himself, "...was entirely NOT my fault."   
  
Kagome glowered.   
  
*   
  
"Okay, first thing we need to do is get you REAL clothes," Kagome said, circling the rather frustrated looking Inuyasha. The white haired boy was positive there was something more productive to be doing over being dressed by an obnoxious teenage girl, but unfortunately he couldn't think of anything. Granted, even if he could think of something, he doubted he would be able to do it. After all, he knew nothing about the time he came from.   
  
Hell, they hadn't even ventured into her house yet.   
  
Inuyasha, though, found that he was quite fine with sitting outside. It had been so long since he felt the sun warm his face like so, even though the clouds were starting to get much thicker. The clouds were a welcome sight, too. _Everything_ was welcome, except for the strange, oily smell in the air.   
  
Unfortunately, Inuyasha kept drifting away from Kagome, completely immersed in everything around him. Distantly, he heard something blare and someone shout, and he tensed. Actually, to his annoyance, the burst of sound happened quite frequently.   
  
"..attention, are you?"   
  
He blinked and turned back to Kagome, looking fairly surprised. She grinned, and that surprised him even more. She had a very nice smile. "Uhm, what?"   
  
"I said, 'you're not paying attention, are you?'" she repeated, eyes sparkling. He looked troubled.   
  
"I can't help it! It's noisy out here."   
  
Kagome looked faintly startled, then understanding. "Oh, I get it. You mean with the cars and stuff?"   
  
"Cars?" Inuyasha repeated.   
  
"..Yeah. I'm never going to get used to this. Come on, let's go inside. I guess I'll have to stick you in my room while I get you some new clothes."   
  
"I still think my clothes are just fine," Inuyasha huffed. "In fact, they're better than fine! They can ward off a whole hell of a lot more than normal clothes can."   
  
Kagome waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah, sure, fine, they'll save your life—and also attract so much attention that you won't even be able to walk outside without being attacked. You can't live in this era and look like THAT."   
  
Of course, Inuyasha looked more than a little offended. "Hey," he growled, "do you have something against my appearances?"   
  
"Only that you look like you walked out of a history book." She sighed and stood up, then looked expectantly at the white haired hanyou. "We'll also have to give you a bath and whatnot."   
  
Inuyasha looked completely horrified by the prospect. "I haven't even battled or anything! All I've been is stuck to a tree!"   
  
"For around five hundred years," Kagome agreed. "You smell kind of moldy."   
  
"Moldly!" His tone was that of great offense—a hanyou such as _he_ did _not_ smell moldy, no matter how long he was stuck to a tree.   
  
"Yeah, and we totally need to do something about that breath."   
  
Inuyasha's ears flattened and eyes narrowed. "Why you..." He lunged, fingers curled as if he were going to rip out her throat, or something equally necessary.   
  
"Eek! SIT!"   
  
WHUMP!   
  
. . .   
  
"You know..." Inuyasha muttered against the ground, sounding quite muffled, "I really, really do not like you."   
  
Kagome grinned and crouched by this side. "Aw, you're a step up from hating me! I'm flattered."   
  
Inuyasha gave up and just slumped back against the ground.   
  
*   
  
Twenty minutes later, Inuyasha found himself sitting on an extremely soft.. _thing_ that Kagome had called a 'bed'. When he asked her just what you did on these 'beds', Kagome simply responded with 'you sleep on them'. Then, of course, she smacked him for snorting derisively at the weakness of humans.   
  
She disappeared after that, leaving him with a corpulent cat that gazed up at him with large eyes. He glared back.   
  
Fifteen minutes later, Kagome walked back in to a dog demon and her cat having a staring match. She shook her head and moved to stand in front of Inuyasha's eyes, causing him to blink with surprise.   
  
"Oi!"   
  
"You can ogle at my cat later, if you want," Kagome grunted, thrusting a fluffy towel in his arms. "Come on. We have to get you bathed up."   
  
"...What on earth is this for?" He held up what he was handed, examining the large, soft cloth.   
  
"It's a towel. You wipe yourself with it after you bathe." Kagome shook her head, looking almost pitying. He glared at that, bundling the 'towel' up again. "I forget how...savage everyone was back then."   
  
"Savage!" he repeated, offended. He entertained the idea of attacking her for a moment, then just shook his head. "You really _don't_ know anything."   
  
He stood up, finally, untying his top. Immediately, Kagome spun around, the tips of her ears nice and red.   
  
"I know that you don't have _any_ modesty!" she yelped back, hands flying to her cheeks to cover her cheeks. "Really! Don't you know you're not supposed to undress like that with a lady in the room?!"   
  
Inuyasha made a show of looking around, even going so far as to look under her bed. After a few long moments of searching, he came to a halt in front of her and raised his shoulders in a cursory shrug. "Nope. Don't see any 'lady' here."   
  
Kagome stared at him for a complete five seconds with her jaw hanging open, then slowly blinked and shut her mouth, lips forming a thin, angry line. Buyo put his paws over his ears.   
  
"SIT!!!"   
  
There was a crash and a BANG, the door reverberating behind Kagome's retreating form. Buyo peeked at the flattened Inuyasha. The dog demon twitched and looked at the smug cat out of the corner of his eye.   
  
"Shut. Up."   
  
*   
  
Cleaning Inuyasha was a lot harder than it sounded. For one thing, the man didn't like sitting still. Almost as soon as he slipped into the water (Kagome had graciously kept her eyes averted and made sure there were a _lot_ of bubbles to hide anything and everything Inuyasha had that...ah...yeah. You know) he had wanted to get out again, and made quite the mess with all the splashing around he did. Really. Kagome felt like she was bathing a toddler.   
  
"Stop moving, will you?" she ordered, squeezing some strawberry scented shampoo on top of his tangled and matted hair. Apparently, being stuck to a tree didn't do any good for his white locks. Well, she would fix that.   
  
"Oi, woman, what are you doing? What are you putting on my head?" his nose scrunched as she began scrubbing out the grime.   
  
"Shampoo. It's to get all this filth out of your hair."   
  
The unfortunate downside of this situation was that Kagome had a feeling the blush on her cheeks would _never_ fade. Not once had she ever imagined herself in a situation like this, washing a guy's hair while he was reclined comfortably in a bathtub. Lord knew she had never gotten that far with _Hojo_. Hell, they had never even gotten passed the kissing stage. And then there she was, washing a completely naked boy's hair.   
  
That thought caused her to pause guiltily. Was this considered cheating?   
  
She snorted at herself and began scrubbing Inuyasha's hair again, a bit more roughly than she intended to. His ears flattened slightly, and she grabbed one and began washing it.   
  
The result of this was a rather surprising rumble deep in Inuyasha's throat. Kagome paused and glanced over at his place, surprised at the completely content look on his features. He had relaxed from his thrashing stage, arms resting against the edges of the tub.   
  
It was like he was purring.   
  
Her blush deepened and she hastily washed his other ear, before checking his hair to see if it had been cleaned to her satisfaction. Deciding it had been, she dunked him.   
  
Looking smugly at his surprised thrashing and curses, she decided that she was feeling guilty for absolutely no reason.   
  
"I'm going to go get you some clothing," she said to his soggy form. He glared at her under sopping, white bangs, then glared even more when she applied the conditioner to his hair. "Rinse this out in a bit, okay?"   
  
Before he could call her some sort of particularly degrading name, she escaped.   
  
Oh dear, she was getting herself into a rut, apparently.   
  
*   
  
It took an hour for Kagome to finish gleefully shopping. Her grandfather had readily agreed to give her a good amount of yen in order to buy all the clothes she deemed fit for Inuyasha, most likely because he did not want to feel the wrath of his only granddaughter. The girl was quite like a youkai herself, when she was annoyed.   
  
Unfortunately, what Kagome 'deemed fit' was much more than any normal girl could possibly carry on her own without pulling a muscle or anything. She solved this problem, however, but giving the bags the evilest glare she could manage. Well, maybe it wasn't exactly _solved_ but it made her feel a good deal bit better.   
  
The shopping experience hadn't gone as well as it should have. Granted, nothing _attacked_ her, but this didn't mean that the trip was particularly comfortable. Almost very turn she made, she was encountered with the strange feeling of _something_ being there, but she wasn't quite sure what this _something_ was.   
  
It felt old.   
  
Actually, it felt rather like those...strange individuals that she had encountered on her way to the temple the first time. The only thing different was that it wasn't focused on a solitary being, but rather felt like it was...just in the air or something.   
  
"It must be Japan," she muttered under her breath in English.   
  
"Excuse me?" a voice answered in Japanese, startling her from her thoughts. The girl who responded to her spoken thoughts gave her a curious look, with a slight quirk to her eyebrows and a pouty frown. "Were you speaking to me, la?"   
  
Kagome smiled a bit nervously. The girl seemed to be one of the strange, beautiful folk she had been encountering lately (with that weird bit of oldness about her), and she was pinning Kagome with a frighteningly intense eyes.   
  
"Ah, no, I'm sorry. I'm Higurashi Kagome," she responded amiably, perhaps hoping for a new friend. "I actually just came back from the States, and please, just call me Kagome."   
  
The girl's eyebrows rose. "Really. And you're from the Higurashi Shrine, la?"   
  
"Yeah. You've heard of it?" She sounded a bit surprised, partially because of the repetition of the word 'la' and a bit because she hadn't realized her family's shrine had become so popular. She shrugged away her trepidation for the time being, focusing on more current problems, mainly how she was supposed to get all the stuff back to her home.   
  
"Yes. My father frequents it and sometimes brings me along. Would you like some help?"   
  
The sudden switch of topics caught Kagome off guard, but she nodded nonetheless. "Thanks. I shouldn't have bought so much, anyway."   
  
The girl smiled, easily grabbing several of the bags. Kagome couldn't help but to be impressed, if a little perturbed. She was petite and looked as if the weight of the bags would break her, but she was holding them as if they weighed nothing. "What do you need with all of this, la? I'm Yura, by the way."   
  
Good question.   
  
What was her answer supposed to be?   
  
"I...uh...well, you see..." She floundered for a moment, trying to think of something better than, 'Oh, well, this hanyou that had been pinned to this tree for hundreds of years just suddenly woke up, and is in need of clothing. As much as I'd like to let him run around naked, however, I have this horrible thing called a conscience, so I decided to normalize him. You know'.   
  
Yeah. That'd be good. And then the girl could help her find the nearest mental ward.   
  
"I, ah, wasn't just buying for me, you see," Kagome explained, giving a helpless sort of smile. It was true, anyway. Just...sort of leaving out certain details.   
  
Yura responded with a mocking smile that simply said, 'You're not fooling me at all'. "Well, you must live with an army then," she teased, starting towards the Higurashi Shrine.   
  
Kagome smiled with embarrassment, rubbing the back of her head. She watched as Yura strolled forward, her smile dropping slightly. The girl   
  
Then it hit her. Inuyasha was there.   
  
"W-wait! Hold on! Nevermind!" she yelped, chasing after the girl ineffectively, due to the ridiculous amount of bags hanging off her arms. Unfortunately, her protests were waved away by a dismissive hand.   
  
"You'll never be able to get home without help. Besides, I really don't have anything to do, and I've wanted to revisit the shrine. I haven't been there in awhile."   
  
"But, ah, we're renovating!"   
  
Yura frowned prettily at her. "I think I can handle a little bit of dirt and mechanics, la. Come on, already." Without further ado, she continued, a worried Kagome trailing after her.   
  
This...was not good.   
  
end chapter two   
  
Hopefully I won't suck anymore and I'll be able to post another chapter soon. Have a happy easter. 


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